Chapter 6 #2
August smiled. “Because every man of a certain class has something to hide. And what good is having all this money if you don’t spread it around for good causes every now and then?
” Ugh, he wanted to bleach his own mouth.
“I’ve got the flexibility for up to five billion dollars of investment, but you’d have to agree to keep me as your main point of contact.
No whining to my big sister and trying to get me kicked out of the agreement. ”
My sister would happily see you put in prison for the rest of your pathetic life.
August watched as Bremmer worked out the balance of the scales in his head, weighing the mortification of being known as a shit-stain of a human being against the fact that August apparently didn’t care; the promise of metric fuck-tons of money versus the discomfort of continuing to deal with August; the satisfaction of having the last word versus the possibility that he might literally get out of jail free with their help.
As the waiter took away their barely touched main courses, the chef reached into a drawer at the back of the guéridon and withdrew a long-handled lighter. He lit it, then extended the flame toward the flare lamp, full of clear fuel that would soon transform into heat for the suzette pan.
In three…
“Mr. Mason,” Bremmer said, extending a hand across the table.
Two…
“You’ve got yourself a—”
One.
Right as the flame began to lick the alcohol, August sharply kicked the bottom edge of the cart. It was heavier than he thought, and a stab of pain shot up from his heel and into his spine like a live wire, but it did the trick and jostled the lamp enough to tip over at just the right time.
Burning alcohol flooded the top of the service station and onto the floor, the table…and the chef.
“Shit!” the guy exclaimed, beating at the flames licking up his formal white uniform before darting out of the room.
“Oh my God!” August shrieked, jumping up, one hand pressed to his face as the other grabbed the tablecloth while he backed away. Oh no, darn, there went the whole meal right onto the floor, along with the flaming tablecloth, and shucks, now the carpet was going up too!
Real Persian rugs, my perfectly round ass. Natural fibers would never go up in flames so fast, especially not from an alcohol fire.
“It’s on fire! This whole place is going to burn down!” He raced around the table and grabbed Bremmer by the collar, hoisting him out of his chair, then began to drag him toward the emergency exit. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
Bremmer flailed ineffectually against August’s grip. “The elevators are in the other direction!”
“Are you kidding me? Elevators, in a burning building. Do you want to catch on fire and suffocate from smoke and fall thirty stories to your death all at the same time?” He turned and shook Bremmer hard, channeling all his glee into a manic expression that made his captive audience blanch. “Do you, motherfucker?”
“No, I don’t!”
“Damn right, you don’t! We’re taking the stairs!” Where there were no security cameras to get in the way of progress.
There were some shrieks and screams from behind them, and the smell of burning nylon was getting worse, but soon enough someone would remember that fire extinguishers existed. They’d be fine.
August rammed the panic bar on the door to the stairwell with his hip and hauled Bremmer in behind him. He took a second to make sure no one else was immediately visible, then released the knife from its custom wrist sheath that Ricardo had given him on their first anniversary, turned around, and—
The sound of the gunshot was secondary to the sensation of blood and brains spattering across his face, his neck, his suit.
August stared, shocked into stillness, as Jaxon Bremmer collapsed in front of him with an almost finger-sized hole in the top of his head and blood flowing out beneath what was left of his jaw.
Jesus Christ. What the fuck was Ricardo thinking, using a large-caliber gun in such a confined space?
The ricochet alone could have killed August. As it was, his ears were ringing so hard he almost didn’t hear the click of a closing door farther up the stairwell.
There his husband went, making his getaway and leaving this mess for August to clean up on his own.
Forgive me, L’Avia. I’m going to have to murder your favorite grandson.
The door right beside him opened, interrupting August’s revenge fantasy with distasteful reality. He sighed, then flicked his knife back up into the sheath as he pretended to lose his shit for the incoming audience.
“Five hours!” August stalked into their hotel suite at a painfully aggressive pace. His body wanted to slow down, but his sense of rage wouldn’t let it. “Five fucking hours being interrogated by the least competent police force in the continental United States!”
Ricardo stood from where he’d been perched on the edge of the couch, his expression taut and wary as he took in the disheveled hellscape that was his husband.
Good, you should be worried! “Five hours, and yet they’re still not as incompetent as you are!”
“August, what—”
“What the fuck was that shot?” he demanded, driving his index finger into the center of his husband’s chest. “What, you dilly-dallied too long with the sniper rifle so you decided to haul out a .45 in the stairwell? Look at me!” He indicated himself with hands shaking from anger and creeping fatigue.
The nap he’d had yesterday afternoon might as well have been a dream after the evening he’d had…
morning… he’d lost track of what time it was.
“Look at my suit! I’ll never be able to get all of this out.
The best cleaner in the world wouldn’t be able to get this out. ”
“August—”
“Look at my hair!” He ran a hand over his blood-encrusted hair.
“I’ve had bits of that toxic pustule in my hair for hours!
On my shoes, on my hands—I got some of him in my mouth, Ricardo, and if that’s not the punishment in one of the lowest circles of hell, you’ll have to let me know after I send you there. ”
Ricardo reached for him, but August smacked his hand away.
He wasn’t ready to be appeased, not when he’d suffered for this level of umbrage.
“You could have killed me!” That was the worst of it, the part that still stung right in the middle of his chest. “I thought you were joking about pointing a gun in my direction, but you could have…” Oh fuck, there went his voice, it was going to break and then he was going to break and he couldn’t break right now, not when he needed to be strong.
“I didn’t kill Bremmer.”
August stopped breathing for a moment. “What?” he whispered.
Ricardo stepped forward, slow and careful like he was ready to dodge a knife. Which, ha, he should be, and yet… “Sweetheart, I didn’t take that shot. I texted you a few minutes after we talked. I told you to get out of there and meet me back here.”
August reached for his phone with a shaky hand. There were no new texts from Ricardo. He held up the damning log. “Prove it.”
Ricardo nodded and pulled out his phone. “Look.” He showed the message to August, who had to shut his eyes after he read it.
Oh, thank God. His husband hadn’t betrayed him.
He hadn’t gotten lazy or careless with him.
He hadn’t put the job before August. When Ricardo’s hands gently closed on his shoulders, August didn’t pull away.
He let Ricardo reel him into a hug and gave into the urge to let him take some of the weight.
“Well,” he said once he could speak again.
“That was the shittiest evening I’ve had in a long time.
Awful company, terrible chef, negative stars for the whole place.
But,” he added a bit more brightly, “at least Bremmer’s dead.
” He lifted his head and tried to smile.
Judging from the way Ricardo just scowled harder, August wasn’t fooling him, but it had been worth a shot.
“Let’s try sticking together on the next one, huh? ”
“Next one?” Ricardo asked.
“Of course.” They couldn’t go out like this. It would spoil every memory August had of being an assassin. “We’re going to take another job, and we’re going to kill it. Literally and figuratively.”
Right after he had a shower and slept for twenty-four hours.